2018

I have to say, living in Florida definitely beats those cold northern temps my friends have been enduring lately. I almost hate to post this photo of me and my friend, Sherry, kayaking on Friday. Almost.

We explored the waterfront of Sarasota Bay and saw two dolphins (mother and child), one osprey diving for food, several pelicans (YAY!), and one wedding (onshore). Sarasota is a new place for me, and this Ringling mansion (winter home of one of the Ringling Brothers of circus fame) was definitely the fanciest building I’ve seen in a while.

Ca’ d’Zan, the Venetian Gothic mansion

Sherry and her husband were hosting me for the holiday weekend, and she was an excellent cook as well. When asked if there was any traditional Thanksgiving food I liked, I said my mother made cloverleaf rolls but they were kind of complicated and I’d be happy with anything they served. Lo and behold, I showed up on Thursday to this:

The weirdest thing about Sarasota was this statue by the waterfront. Go figure…

Other than a bit of Friday shopping at a bookstore (whee, a really nice, independent bookstore, something we don’t have in Gainesville) and chores and errands, it’s been a quiet week. Two paddles in one week definitely made me a happy camper. This week’s cover photo is the view on the water of Lake Warburg in Gainesville.

We do get weather here, as the above photo shows. And as I was watching the livestream of Mars Insight landing on the red planet, the world outside my Alto was thundering and lightening and pouring down rain. It was a nice break from all that sunshine and warmth 🙂

I think there’s a poet who wrote once a tragedy by Shakespeare, a symphony by Beethoven and a thunderstorm are based on the same elements. I think that’s a beautiful line.

Another quiet week here in northern Florida, with a mix of weather so hot we were in the pool, so cold we had the heat on, and so rainy that things got pretty muddy outside the Alto, all in the space of seven days. Go figure. And then walking around the neighborhood, I saw this and I don’t quite know what to make of it.

I’m also not sure what to do with this, a magazine display at the local Publix grocery store. It’s a little different than I’m used to being what some might call a #liberalsnowflake (and I’m fine with that).

Then again, I never saw anything like this in California…

It all kind of leaves me feeling like this piece at a local art exhibition…

Between the local scene and the shambles that were the state election results, it’s going take me a while to figure out where I fit in here in Florida. For now, I’m taking the advice of another display at the art show. Not sure what it means, but I think it means I can do anything I want, right?

Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.

Another Wednesday, and I’m sitting outside in my comfy camp chair, gently rocking with the breeze as I write this. If I sound mellow, that’s about right. Two weeks of being in one place has been a luxury. This trend will continue till late January, and I’m enjoying it so very much. It’s not that I hate moving, it’s more that I’ve realized I was moving so much that I didn’t have time to be still and let what I’ve seen seep into my soul and then come back out as art. I was taking photos on the fly, hoping that a bit of post-processing and a quick blog post would capture the essence of what I saw. As the weeks and months flew by, I was getting more frustrated with my posts and yet I couldn’t figure out why. It took sitting still for a few weeks to realize that things need to change when I go back out on the road next January.

This is the first time ever that I have not been in motion in my adult life. I’ve always been working or looking for the next job; I’ve never had the luxury of just being somewhere, without the pressure of a job, either in progress or ahead of me. And since I moved into my trailer, this is also the first time I’ve stopped for more than a few weeks and not had to be thinking ahead about packing things up and moving to the next spot. I have the time to think about what I want to do, and the when and the how of it. This stillness is starting to pay off.

Two ideas I’m working on have to do precisely with “moving and doing” vs. “stopping and thinking.” In 2019, I’ve decided to focus my travels on two themes and build in time while traveling to stop and reflect on those themes and process the photos and experiences before they get away from me. Sometimes it feels like the last two years of traveling are a jumble in my head and the challenge of writing in depth about what I’ve seen or done is overwhelming. By focusing my travel on themes and locales, with time to synthesize my thoughts and images before I move on, I hope to produce better blog posts and maybe even some essays that dive more deeply into places or topics of note.

The first theme for 2019 is the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. I had originally planned to explore places in Alabama this fall, but I realized I wasn’t ready for it. I need to do more reading and learning about historical events and and politics before I see these places in order to fully appreciate them in the context of American history. This winter, I’ll be working my way through a reading list as well as selecting places to visit and then the time to absorb it all and write about it. I’m giving myself eight weeks in the Spring to explore this theme, and that feels like a solid start.

The second theme is more photography-based. One of the photographers I’ve followed for years is David du Chemin, because he writes more about the why of an image than the technical side, like lenses, tripods, and lighting. He’s much more apt to ask Why that image and not this one? or What story am I trying to tell? and that speaks to me more than worrying about which F-stop I’m using. His latest missive was about diving deep, rather than wide and in it, he challenged his readers to pick a subject and dive into it for a year. The second I read that sentence, the word “trees” popped into my head and it hasn’t left.

The idea of spending a year really looking at and learning about trees seems to be exactly the right idea at the right time. As with all ideas that resonate deeply with me, the synchronicity of trees has been building for a while. I just finished reading The Overstory, a fantastic book that weaves trees into the stories of several characters, who then are woven together by the tree story lines into one larger epic, sort of the way individual trees are really a forest. The book is amazing on many levels and it got me thinking deeply about trees and all that I have seen as I’ve gone cross-country the last few years. In 2019, I want to head out west by mid-year, and so the range of trees and forests I could see in the next year could encompass most of the forests in the US, if I plan it right. I have no idea where this theme will lead me, but I want to find out.

Other than thinking a lot, I haven’t done a whole lot the past week. Did a few hikes bathing in the Florida forest, had some good meals with friends, walked around the neighborhood, and got to know my way around on foot. Now if only the weather would cool down, it would be perfect.

Tree, Centennial Park, Seattle, Washington (2013)

When you go into the woods and you look at trees, you see all these different trees… and some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens and some of them are – whatever. And you look at the tree, and you just – allow it. You appreciate it. You see why it is the way it is, you sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way, and you don’t get all emotional about it, you just allow it. You appreciate the tree.

The minute you get near humans, you lose all that, and you’re constantly saying, “You’re too this,” or “I’m too this,” or – that judging mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees, which means appreciating them just the way they are.

Been a quiet week here in Gainesville, except for the trip two hours south to see manatees in their winter haven (see Sunday’s post). Here’s a shot that didn’t make it into that report.

I’ve been walking a lot, getting to know the neighborhood. The trees are old here, and big, and they are amazing.

It’s almost like Spring here in Florida. It’s too hot during the summer for flowers to grow, so now that it’s cooling down (only 82F today!), the buds are breaking out all over.

I’m going to take a break from weekly updates in November, since I’ll be stationary for the month and getting my lazy on. You might see some posts with places I’ve been but maybe not. I might just hang out the “On Vacation” shingle for a while.

The week started with two nights at Dreher Island State Park, somewhere in the middle of South Carolina. I got lucky and my site was close enough to the water I could just slide down a little bit of land to launch my kayak and have a nice afternoon paddle. My campsite was just to the right of where the kayak is pointing.

I was only 20 miles or so from Columbia, the state capital, so I went in on Thursday to have a look around. The Museum of Art is adding space, so it’s a hot mess of noise and construction, but the upside was free admission! And this is a cool collection, organized by theme rather than chronologically, so you can understand the evolution of portraiture or modern art or even furniture. Small collection but some big names: Warhol, Miro, Monet, and Calder were some of the artists represented. I say check it out if you’re in Columbia.

Beautiful piece at the Columbia Museum of Art

From the sublime to the slightly ridiculous: two blocks away is the world’s largest fire hydrant. Non-functional, thankfully, and fenced in so that dogs don’t get any ideas…

One of the highlights of the day was spending time at the African-American History Monument, tracing the history from Africa to modern day. Look for a separate post on this later…

Friday, I hitched up the Alto and headed further south, into Georgia and a return to Skidaway Island State Park. This time, I did more exploring, including a zombie ghost tour in Savannah with friends (thanks, Neil and Lori, it was definitely a fun evening!) and a visit to a mile-long avenue of live oaks at Wormsloe. More trees to love. (The spooky cover photo this week is from the ghost tour.)

From there, I did a one-night stand at Crooked River State Park (Georgia). It was a nice enough park but I was definitely jonesing to get home and stop moving. This is the little lake right in the campground, where there’s a tiny sign warning you alligators are in there. A lovely reminder of all that is the tropical South.

And then, Monday, I made it to Gainesville, and the end to this 18-month sojourn through the US and Canada (May 2, 2016 – Oct 29, 2018). I’ll go back out in the Spring, but for now I’m planted firmly in the tiny RV park that is my friends’ side yard. This time I even have a canopy!

To celebrate my arrival, we took a stroll down to the newly named Tom Petty Park and then hit up happy hour at the local sushi bar. Ah, civilization rocks!

I have a large backlog of places I want to feature on my blog in the next few months, so I’m not going away. I’ll be taking advantage of the opportunity to reflect and synthesize my experiences into art, as all artists do. So stay tuned…

There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.

Ah, back in the land of data. No, not that guy from Star Trek:TNG. Real data, the kind that means pictures upload in seconds instead of minutes, and pages load in the blink of an eye instead of while I’m doing the dishes waiting for Facebook or the New York Times to display on my tablet.

My sweet riverside spot for the week

The last week was lovely, and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it, but the data connectivity there was poor to none unless I drove to the overlook or into town (which is how I did yesterday’s post, btw). As Joni Mitchell once wrote “you don’t know what you’ve got till its gone” and internet connectivity definitely falls into that category.

To offset that lack, I had actual physical friends to camp with for the weekend. Real people, real conversations, and a lot of laughter and stories. All told, there were seven Alto trailers in the little campground and, for once, I was the one with the noisy campfire group 🙂 Some of us went kayaking one warm afternoon…

and those of us who stayed until Monday hiked a bit of the Appalachian Trail (my second AT hike!).

It was well worth the rocky paths and ups and downs to see a bit of fall color and the magnificence of Laurel Falls.

By Tuesday, all the other Altos had left the campground, and so I did the exciting things that vagabonds do in their down time: laundry, grocery shopping, making business calls, and filling the tank with gasoline. Wednesday, it was my turn to hitch up and head south, aiming for Gainesville by end of the month.

Shhhh, don’t tell anyone… look what I found on I-26 south of Asheville.

I’m doing three hops to get home, two nights in South Carolina, two nights in northern Georgia and then three nights along the coast near the GA/FL state line to get my coastal vibe on before I head inland for a few months. I made a good pick for my first hop: sweet waterfront access from my site so I hopped into the kayak for a late afternoon paddle.

And that’s my week. Hope yours had at least one adventure in it somewhere!

Eastern Tennessee just has to be one of the most beautiful places I’ve been in the last few years. Small towns, not a lot of cell signal on the back roads, but the people are friendly and the places are quiet and peaceful this time of year. Autumn is starting to show, temperatures dropping, leaves too. The colors haven’t shown up much yet, but I’m still hopeful they will.

Last Friday, I did my first ever hike along the Appalachian Trail. I should have grabbed my hiking poles. Lots of ups and downs and rocks, and the trail was pretty wet in places thanks to the soaking rains of the week. I scrambled a few times, but mostly managed to stay upright. From Carver’s Gap to Jane’s Bald to Grassy Ridge and back, it was about 3 hours and, if you believe FitBit, 152 floors 🙂

It was definitely worth it for the view, south to the Smokies.

Sunday, I headed just slightly north, back to one of my happy place campgrounds, Watauga Dam. Right on a lake between two dams, with high cliffs, blue herons, bald eagles, and light that changes every hour, a photographer’s dream.

Here’s the view one morning out my front door. Just look at that light.

And, yes, it’s also a happy place for kayaking. The wind is colder now than in August, but the views are still amazing and the sky is just blue as blue can be. Two blue herons, mating or fighting, I couldn’t tell, swooped down to the water not 10 feet from me.

I’m still fighting the tech wars, albeit less than before. My new phone didn’t have wifi calling (which is how I usually get calls and voicemail, ATT wifi calling onto my Verizon hotspot because Verizon beats ATT most of the places in the US), so I headed into town to get enough ATT reception to call support. Who promptly bricked my phone (turned it into something slightly less useful than a brick). And then I got to drive 10 miles to an ATT store where a nice woman fixed it by issuing me a new SIM card. Turns out every time you get a new phone, you should not swap the SIM card from your old phone. Who knew? Now I do, and you do too.

This blue heron couldn’t care less about my iPhone saga.

There is one path in the world that none can walk but you. Where does it lead? Don’t ask, walk!